ANDREA TOKAJI IS A TRAINED INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER, FAMILY THERAPIST/COUNSELLOR AND A NATIONALLY ACCREDITED MEDIATOR AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONSULTANT.

Andrea Tokaji Consulting provides human rights consultancy, personal and professional mediation services, legal and human rights training, consultancy in preventative practices and compliance consultancy to ensure the eradication of modern day slavery in supply chains and to ensure policy and practice consistency with Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018.

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Victims of modern day slavery experience grave human rights violations against their persons, liberty, life and safety, and the crimes of human trafficking, slavery, servitude and exploitation are serious crimes and have devastating impacts.

On the eve of the closing of Nauru and Manus Island detention facilities, I think it is helpful to reflect on those that contribute positively to change, and those that, through their advocacy might institute further harms.

The gravest human right violation in our world today is slavery – and the most abhorrent form of slavery is sexual exploitation, where its victims experience not only slavery, trafficking and abuse but also daily rape. The majority of the world’s slaves today are women and children, and can be found predominantly in brothels across the world.

This paper looks at the States due diligence obligation of preventing harm from occurring to the common person, but particularly for victims of human trafficking, and how under international human rights law, the considerations of harm have shifted from only public to also the private spheres, and how this may be relevant to a commercial transaction of purchasing a sexual service, especially if that service is fraught with gender based violence.

The demand for prostitution in Australia has seen it become a regular destination for trafficked women. The enslavement of women in the sex industry is a sober reminder that more must be done to advance human rights in Australia.

So, slavery was abolished years ago – right? Not so much. In fact, there are more slaves in the world today than there ever have been before in history. There are several push and pull factors and ‘reasons’ for slavery - including economic, social, psychological, criminal, and ideological – but the greatest reason, aside from the money it makes criminals, is demand.

Adrian Bayley, the man who raped and murdered Victorian journalist Jill Meagher in 2012, had a history of violence towards prostituted women. His attitude was, according to an interview, that once he pays for someone he can do what he wants with them.

This article looks at the rise of children sexually abusing other children as a result of watching porn on line, and the need for restorative justice measures to be applied in the context of the State’s due diligence obligations to protect children from harm.